Four Corners, Four Winds

 

Rev. 7:1:  “After these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.”

            “Four corners” is understood also as “four quarters.”  The “four winds” is used to represent “every direction.”  The word “wind” in the Hebrew is rûwach which may also be translated ‘breath,’ or ‘spirit.’  In Daniel 7:2 he saw the ‘four winds’ as stirring up the great sea.  The spiritual application of this is that the entire spectrum of spirits was stirring up the great masses of mankind.  Here in Revelation 7:1 the angel forbids these spirits to move until the saints are sealed.

 

Sealing of the Saints

 

Revelation 7:3:  “Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.”  [Sealing continued through vs. 9.  See also 14:1-5.]

 

            The sixth seal of the book shows the catastrophes that are befalling those who have come under the “wrath of the Lamb,” (Revelation 6:12-17).  This wrath cannot come, however, until the 144,000 are “sealed.”

            The seal was like a stamp which imprinted the Name of the person for whom the seal was made.  The Hebrew word in view in this instance is probably the word chătham (Strong’s #02857).  Gesenius says:

The Ancients were accustomed to put a seal on many things for which we use a lock….It also indicates that a thing is completed or finished, as when a letter has been sealed, i.e. signed.  It may also indicate the thing is certified, or attested as genuine (Lexicon, p.314).

The sealing of these 144,000 then would indicate that the old tribal identities were completed, finished.  The genealogies were sealed up, finished in Christ, Who is alive forevermore.  The authenticity of the prophecies was attested to as true.

            The “sealing” of the 144,000 must also be understood in the context of other New Testament Scriptures.  We are “sealed” by the Holy Spirit:  2 Corinthians. 1:22; Ephesians 1:13; 4:30.  That is, we are attested as genuine, and certified as Sons of God:

1 Corinthians. 1:22:  Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.

 

Ephesians 1:13:  In whom ye also [trusted], after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise.

 

Ephesians 4:30:  And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.

 

John 6:27: Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed.

 

            Jesus was certified the Son of God.  He is the One who was “sealed” and His Body was meat indeed, (John 6:55).  Those who partake of His Body and His Spirit participate in the “sealing.” 

            John G. Lake said that the signs which Christ ordained to follow the believers were the seal of God upon them:

This was heaven’s characteristic.  It was the trademark of the Christ on HIS goods.  It was the brand, the stamp burned into the soul of the BELIEVER with heavenly fire.[1]

            The book of Daniel was sealed until the “time of the end,” (12:4, 9).  The book of Revelation was not to be sealed, awaiting a future time, (22:10), but was to be fulfilled immediately.  The time of that “end” which Daniel foresaw was specified, as calculated in 9:24-27 and 12:7-12.  The seventy weeks were decreed:

Concerning your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy (“one”, or “place.) (RSV)

            Many scholars have conclusively shown that this time was fulfilled and the events were accomplished in history at Calvary and the destruction of Jerusalem forty years later.  The book of Revelation shows the fulfillment of Daniel‘s prophecies of the end of the fleshly kingdom, attesting to their truth.

            That Daniel‘s prophecies have been literally fulfilled should not be a cause for stumbling but rather a source of certainty that they are indeed the word of God.  That they have been fulfilled makes it all the more certain that they will be fulfilled again upon the entire planet after the Gospel has gone throughout the world as a witness.  They serve as a “sign” of the end of the whole earth in due time.

            But not only are there the 144,000 but there is also the “thirteenth” tribe, who are also clothed in white and sing praise to the Lamb, (7:9-12).  They are those from every nation, Jews and Gentiles, who have “washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”  These are the Body of Christ, perfected in Him, certified, blessed and sheltered by God the Father and the Lamb.

            This “sealing” of the 144,000 occurs immediately before the catastrophes of the opening of the seventh seal of the book.  Chapter 8 begins with the opening of this seventh seal, which consists of the seven trumpets of catastrophes.  These catastrophes cannot happen until these blessed ones are protected by the “seal.”  This delay of judgment corresponds to the delay while the Gospel was being preached to the Jewish world both in Palestine and in the diaspora during the forty years between Christ’s crucifixion and the destruction of Jerusalem.  The nation would not be destroyed until the Gospel had been preached to all the nations of the Jews throughout the world and those who were willing had accepted Christ as their Messiah.

            The “144,000” of chapter 14 do not include the innumerable “thirteenth tribe” of 7:9, “from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues“.  Rather, they represent those who came out of Judaism, that is, the “first fruits” of the harvest, (see 14:4).  The rabbinic writings taught that the “first fruits” could only be brought in from Judea, and that as near as possible to Jerusalem.[2]  The fact that these are called “first fruits”, as well as the fact that they are from the named twelve tribes, indicates that they were “Jewish” Christians.

            Summers believes the two groups, Revelation 7:4-9 and Revelation 14:1-7, are the same group, and that there is no distinction made here between Jewish Christians and other Christians.[3]  To this I answer that in the book of Revelation it is necessary to show that the good seed of the Word did produce a seed crop, a remnant, out of the Jewish nations, the “twelve tribes.”  This “remnant” then became the seed crop for the whole world, sowing the good seed of the Word throughout the world.  It is necessary to show these things to firmly establish the continuity between the Old Israel and the New and to show the essential relationship between the two.

            To those who believe a future 144,000 Jews will preach the Gospel to the whole world at some future time, let them see that this was literally accomplished in the forty years between the cross and the destruction of Judea and Jerusalem in AD 70

            The book of Revelation deals with all of the symbols of the Old Testament Israel and shows their fulfillment and translation into Christ and His Body, the Church.  It is a necessary part of the Bible to show that not one good Word of God has fallen to the ground fruitless; not one good promise has failed; that God did not forsake His Chosen People, but rather that they became, in Christ, an innumerable multitude, as the stars of heaven.

            Note also that the 144,000 plus the innumerable thirteenth tribe are sealed in their foreheads.  This is in contradistinction to the “mark of the Beast” which the wicked had received in their foreheads or hand.  This may suggest the tradition of wearing the Scriptures outwardly as was practiced by the Pharisees.  The true saints of God wore these Scriptures in their hearts and minds.

            The “sealing” of these 144,000 is a part of the “opening” of the sixth seal of the book of Revelation, 6:12.